People matter: Kayani
Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has said the “will and support” of people was essential in combating internal and external threats to the nation. “Ultimately, it is the will of the people and their support that is decisive,” he said while addressing the 105th Corps Commanders Conference held at General Headquarters and attended by top military brass, including all corps commanders and principal staff officers.

Bhutto KillingRole of missing servant under scanner
Islamabad, January 4
An absconding servant of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, who aroused suspicion with his “strange gestures” while she was delivering her last address in Rawalpindi last week, could provide a clue to her killing, Pakistan People’s Party workers said.
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Poll in Benazir’s constituency cancelled
Islamabad, January 4
Pakistan’s Election Commission today cancelled elections in the constituency in southern Sindh province from which slain former premier Benazir Bhutto was seeking to enter the lower house of Parliament.

B’desh oppn wants elections by July
The Bangladesh’s Awami League (AL)on Thursday called for elections by July, five months ahead of the army-backed caretaker government’s planned road map to put an end to the ongoing political crisis.

‘Mid-April Nepal poll impossible’
Kathmandu, January 4
A top Nepalese leader of the ruling coalition has expressed doubts over the holding of the crucial Constituent Assembly elections by mid-April with the “deteriorating” security situation in the country.

UK bans junk food ads for children
London, January 4
With a view to containing rising levels of childhood obesity, a total ban on advertisements for unhealthy food and drink products around TV programmes for under-16s has come into force in the UK.

A five-member squad of anti-terrorist experts from Scotland Yard arrived here today to assist Pakistani investigators to probe into the circumstances surrounding assassination of Benazir Bhutto amid looming scepticism whether it could do much to unravel the mystery under given conditions. The team received briefing from officials of the interior ministry and later examined the crime scene.

Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has said the “will and support” of people was essential in combating internal and external threats to the nation. “Ultimately, it is the will of the people and their support that is decisive,” he said while addressing the 105th Corps Commanders Conference held at General Headquarters (GHQ) and attended by top military brass, including all corps commanders and principal staff officers (PSOs).

Chairing the conference for the first time after taking charge of the army in November, Kayani said the country was confronted with challenges and a comprehensive national effort was needed to defeat all kinds of threats.

“Our country can thwart and defeat all kinds of threats through a comprehensive national effort, in which all segments of society play their rightful role. It is the harmonisation of socio-political, administrative and military strategies that will bring an environment of peace and stability in the long term,” he said.

The corps commanders also reviewed the army’s deployment in various parts of the country to support the civil administration in maintenance of law and order. Kayani said the army would prove to the task. General Kayani praised the army for assisting local administration in restoring law and order in Sindh recently.

Suicide bombers

Security has been put on red alert in Rawalpindi and Islamabad following reports that seven suicide bombers had entered the twin cities.

Interior ministry officials here said the ministry had received a report from security agencies that seven suicide attackers had entered the two cities. The ministry has directed the IG, DIG, SSP and Islamabad district administration to ensure “extraordinary” security arrangements.

Stern checking [of vehicles] has been started at all entry points of the federal capital and the strength of police and rangers has been enhanced. Security has been beefed up in and around Aiwan-e-Sadr, Prime Minister’s secretariat, the Supreme Court and other state buildings.

Political cell of ISI

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, president of pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) has said the political cell in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) should continue to work because “it keeps a watch on political parties and reports their anti-government and anti-state activities”.

While talking to ARY television, he said his party was willing to hold talks with all other political parties to allay their concerns regarding elections, adding that his party would accept the results of the elections.

Shujaat said Nawaz Sharif had the habit of turning political differences into personal enmity. He said Nawaz’s faction of PML could bag more votes had he stayed out of the country. “Nawaz has lost popularity and is now left to address people waiting at bus stands,” he commented. He said Nawaz had damaged his party’s reputation by “merging it with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)”.

Islamabad, January 4
An absconding servant of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, who aroused suspicion with his “strange gestures” while she was delivering her last address in Rawalpindi last week, could provide a clue to her killing, Pakistan People’s Party workers said.

Khalid Shahinshah, who was hired by Bhutto on the recommendation of her security advisor Rahman Malik, has been on the run ever since footage emerged of the strange gestures he had made while standing on the dais next to Bhutto while she was addressing an election rally.

Shahinshah was standing on Bhutto’s left during her speech and ran a finger across his throat which implied slitting the throat. Security officials have expressed concern at his “suspicious gestures” which could not be ignored.

They told The News that his arrest could “provide answers to many questions”.

According to PPP workers, after Bhutto’s speech, Shahinshah was in a rush to get inside her bulletproof vehicle and did not hold the door open for the former premier. Local TV channels have aired the footage of him making the strange gestures.

Shahinshah was usually the last person to get into Bhutto’s vehicle and sometimes, when there was lack of space in the car, he would stand on its footboard.

After Bhutto’s assassination, Shahinshah stayed at Zardari House, her home in Islamabad, for two days. He did not attend Bhutto’s funeral in her ancestral village of Naudero in Sindh province and went there only on the third day after her death, The News reported.

When cornered by PPP workers, Shahinshah disappeared after saying his mother had died. He has been on the run since then.

According to reports, Shahinshah was a leader of the Pakistan Students Federation. He was with Bhutto in Dubai and returned with her to Pakistan on October 18.

Meanwhile, two gold rings that Bhutto wore are missing. Doctors at the Rawalpindi General Hospital, where she was taken after the suicide attack on her, claim they gave them to Bhutto’s servants along with her other belongings. But the servants have denied these claims. — PTI

Islamabad, January 4
Pakistan’s Election Commission today cancelled elections in the constituency in southern Sindh province from which slain former premier Benazir Bhutto was seeking to enter the lower house of Parliament.

“The election process was terminated in National Assembly-207 Larkana-cum-Shikarpur in Sindh due to the death of Benazir Bhutto,” the commission said in a statement.

No fresh date was announced. “As such, fresh proceedings will commence after the election schedule for the said constituencies is announced by the EC, in due course of time and in due process of law,” the statement said.

EC secretary Kanwar Dilshad said the remaining candidates would not be required to file fresh nomination papers but fresh candidates would be given a chance to file papers.

Elections were also cancelled in a constituency of the assembly of the North West Frontier Province due to killing of a candidate in a bomb attack. Miangul Asfandyar Amir Zeb, a candidate who backed President Pervez Musharraf, was killed when his vehicle was targeted in Swat valley last week.
— PTI

The Bangladesh’s Awami League (AL)on Thursday called for elections by July, five months ahead of the army-backed caretaker government’s planned road map to put an end to the ongoing political crisis.

The demand comes days after the army-backed administration offered to allow two detained former prime ministers, chiefs of the AL and the right-leaning BNP, to go overseas for medical treatment, in a bid to renew efforts to send them on exile.

The government tried in vain to exile the two women last year, popularly known as the ‘minus-two’ theory, but was met with widespread criticism. They were later jailed under charges of corruption and abuse of power.

Both parties said they would not go to polls without the release of their party chief, but a number of senior leaders are reportedly against boycotting elections wanting instead to rise to the head of the party. The BNP has already split along those lines.

The AL’s latest demand is the first time any of the two major political parties have issued a deadline for the government to hold elections since the army-backed administration took power in January 2007.

“To get rid of the present situation, the polls should be held by June-July and power will have to be handed over immediately to an elected government,” AL presidium member Suranjit Sengupta told reporters Thursday evening.

Growing public discontent over skyrocketing commodity prices, especially in the country’s staple food rice, has rattled the government still reeling from November’s massive cyclone that wreaked havoc in the country’s south.

Army chief Moeen U. Ahmed on Wednesday told reporters the country was facing a ‘catastrophic rice crisis’ with a massive 2.9 million metric tonne shortage that had worsened the price crunch.

Kathmandu, January 4
A top Nepalese leader of the ruling coalition has expressed doubts over the holding of the crucial Constituent Assembly elections by mid-April with the “deteriorating” security situation in the country.

Speaking to mediapersons in the industrial district of Biratnagar, he said the Constituent Assembly poll would not be held if the security situation did not improve.

Koirala, the nephew of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, underlined the need for the integration of Maoists PLA fighters into the Nepal army before the poll are held.

“It will be difficult to go for polls if the process of integrating the PLA personnel into the national army is not initiated,” he said, adding “as the issue of integration was mentioned in the interim constitution, it should be taken seriously.”

He said a committee coordinated by minister for peace and reconstruction, Ram Chandra Poudel, has been formed for the integration of the Maoists in the Nepal army.
— PTI

Nairobi, January 4
A Kenyan Olympic runner, who competed internationally for many years, was among the victims of the country’s post-poll violence when a mob stoned him to death this week, a close friend said on Friday.

Lucas Sang, a middle-distance runner, had competed in the 1988 Seoul Olympics as a part of Kenya’s 4x400 m relay quartet, and in the 1992 games at Barcelona.

Violence had erupted in opposition strongholds in east Africa over a disputed presidential election in which President Mwai Kibaki defeated challenger Raila Odinga amid accusations of vote rigging.

A close friend of Sang and a former professional athlete, Martin Keino, said the runner was attacked on Tuesday by a stone-throwing gang as he walked with a group of friends. He died when a rock hit his head and the gang then burned his body.

“One of the ways they recognised him was there was a piece of his tracksuit still not burnt on the leg,” Keino said.

“It’s really sad. He was very well known and popular,” he added.

Eldoret had seen the worst of ethnic clashes that many Kenyans could scarcely believe were happening in their country, usually seen as a relatively stable nation in a turbulent region.

Much of the violence had targeted Kibaki’s large, economically dominant Kikuyu ethnic group, especially in Eldoret and Rift Valley, where around 90 persons were killed and hundreds of homes were burnt.

Thousands of people had fled town and around 40,000 in the Rift Valley were internally displaced, aid workers said.

Keino said the rioters mistook the athlete, who hails from the Kalenjin tribe whose youths had launched many of the attacks in Eldoret for a Kikuyu. “It was at night, in the dark. Tensions are high. They mistook him for someone else, I guess. No one would have done this if they knew it was he,” he said.

The funeral will be held in Eldoret on Saturday. Keino said he hoped it would bring people together. “Hopefully, it’s going to make people realise this violence has to stop,” he added.
— Reuters

Opposition protests subsided today and the government said it was ready to accept a court-ordered rerun of an election whose disputed result unleashed a wave of violence.

The United Nations said it was scrambling to get food to 1 lakh people facing starvation in western Kenya after they fled the violence, which included the burning to death of 30 people in a church.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates there are around 2.50 lakh internally displaced people in Kenya, many more than previously thought, UN spokeswoman Michel Montas said in New York.

As international efforts to end the bloody crisis intensified, a senior US envoy arrived in Kenya and Washington joined a chorus of voices calling for dialogue between President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga.
— Reuters

London, January 4
With a view to containing rising levels of childhood obesity, a total ban on advertisements for unhealthy food and drink products around TV programmes for under-16s has come into force in the UK.

It extends similar restrictions already in place for shows aimed at children under 10-years-old. The new curbs affect commercials for food and drink products high in fat, salt and sugar.

The measures were developed by communications regulator Ofcom in response to rising levels of childhood obesity in the UK.

Adverts around youth-oriented and adult programmes, which attract a significantly higher than average proportion of viewers under-16, would also be affected, Ofcom said.

Children’s TV channels would be allowed to phase in the full ban by the end of December 2008. Ofcom drew up the new advertising restrictions following a public consultation, which drew fierce debate from opposing camps.

Health and consumer groups were still lobbying for a pre-9pm ban on all TV adverts for foods high in fat, salt and sugar. They argued that many TV shows that were popular with young viewers such as early evening soaps, slipped through the net because they even attracted a large proportion of adult viewers.
— UNI